Being able to access maps of any part of the globe updated on daily basis whenever necessary could have important benefits for scientific reason as well as for better emergencies evaluations.

Constellations can avoid one of the most common problems with Earth Optical Observations from satellite. Clouds covering a region and blocking the view. If there’s one single satellite that passes over a region every 30 days and there’s a cloudy day it may be necessary to wait till next time the satellite will be above the same region, 30 days later. Doubling the observation time for many applications is not acceptable.

Most of the time different satellite operators, from different countries, may share data solving the problem, perhaps with only some days of delay.

Why is the update frequency of the maps important?

Agricultural improvements
. Instead of receiving data once each month, being able to access information everyday on crops and soil condition that may allow farmers to deal with droughts more efficiently increasing the overall productivity.

Emergencies like earthquakes, floods, forest fires, humanitarian crisis etc
. All these need rapid information in order to coordinate the emergency teams more efficiently. For example in case of earthquakes or floods it could be possible to identify places with major damage or obstacles that could slow emergency teams.

Planet Labs
is a company that works with a constellation of optical satellites (Doves) many about 10x10x30 cm in size. They manage to create maps of the whole globe updated on daily basis. Gallery of some of their
photos from space
.

The discovery of 7 Earth-Size planets by Nasa has been very popular. Let’s see some key aspects of this star and its planets.

Trappist-1
: red dwarf with a mass equal to 8% of the solar mass. Just above the limit for nuclear fusion to be possible.

7 planets:
Orbital period from 1.51 to maximum 20 days. Distance from star is about 3% Earth distance from Sun. Planet radius between 0.76 and 1.13 Earth’s radius.

NASA/Jpl

As we can see the 7 planets are Earth-Size planets but besides that the system itself is very different from our own. This could mean it had a completely different evolutionary process.

Planets the size of Earth do not guarantee the necessary conditions for life to develop even if situated in the habitable zone of the solar system. A planetary magnetic field is required in order to have an atmosphere. Latest discoveries have proved how Mars lost its atmosphere because of the solar wind that slowly ripped away the molecules.

Even if the Trappist-1 is smaller then the Sun the planets are much closer then Earth. Star radiation could be a problem and other negative aspects due to this proximity could also be present.

Life needs challenges that force it to evolve, an unstable environment. Systems that are too stable don’t create the necessary conditions for life to evolve. Too unstable ones destroy the elementary life forms.

So why should someone do these researches?
Models built to describe how the Solar System has formed need to be verified. Similar stellar system at different evolutionary stages could help understand what happened and what will happen to our system.

Trappist-1 is about 39.5 light year away. The simplest conversation would take about 80 years just for the initial presentations. Finding extraterrestrial life sure is interesting but it’s just the last of the goals.